Crossing boundaries on the ground with technologies

Remote sensing technique for microtopography in

10 endangered species habitat
FRANK PARTRIDGE, Big Cypress National Preserve, HCR 61, Box 110, Ochopee,
Florida 34141; bicy_gis@nps.gov
History and setting
There is perhaps no more obvious an example of boundary conflicts of human
and natural systems in the whole world than the Florida Everglades. Over the last 100
years, the human population of South Florida has exploded from mere thousands to
5 million. The conflicts in values expressed in alterations to the landscape reflect how
the human values have changed.
Dividing to conquer
The Everglades are all about the need to control water. The first concerted effort,
which took place in 1906, drained Lake Okeechobee to provide water for vast sugar
cane and produce farms. Devastating hurricanes in the 1920s caused widespread
flooding, the loss of over 1,200 lives, and a public outcry for flood protection. The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the lake’s southern end, and a wider web of
drainage canals spread across the wetlands to drain the excess water to the Atlantic
Ocean. In 1947, environmentalists succeeded in creating Everglades National Park.
In 1950, the state took management control of the water-control structures, such as
gates, weirs, and levees, under the Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) Project.
The creation of the Big Cypress National Preserve in 1974 added to the sheltered
areas, but the booming crush of tourism-borne immigration in the 1970s and 1980s
cemented the water conflicts between thriving populations and natural systems.
The physical and political fragmentation of the original Greater Everglades Eco-
system caused the compartmentalized form and function of current managed areas.
More than half of the natural function of the original, natural Everglades—once com-
prising 10,800 sq mi—has been lost to agricultural conversion or urban development.
Dilution of powers
The federal government is the largest steward in South Florida, with about 2.3
million acres, but the South Florida Water Management District jurisdiction encom-
passes the entire hydrologic drainage basin. However, over 40 management agencies,
special districts, departments, and organizations oversee over 75 distinct managed
areas. A federal coordinating task force was organized through an interagency
agreement in 1993. The 1996 Water Resources Development Act formally integrated
25 member organizations of tribal, state, and local governments into the
comprehensive restoration scene.
As NPS Regional Director John J. Reynolds wrote, in a presentation co-authored
with Christine Schonewald:
Science will and must occupy a crucial center in the management of protected
areas in the future. The scope of our paper does not focus on the biological or
physical sciences.... Rather, it focuses on the interests of people and their values,
and the need to bond protected areas to the societies within which they exist. It
turns the early 20 th century idea of ‘boundary’ inside out—no longer is a boundary

From Crossing Boundaries in Park Management: Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Research and
Resource Management in Parks and on Public Lands, edited by David Harmon (Hancock, Michigan: The George
Wright Society, 2001). © 2001 The George Wright Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Crossing boundaries on the ground with technologies

a line of certain demarcation.... No, today a boundary must be seen as something

like a ‘diffusion filter.’ But what a change! (Reynolds and Schonewald 1998).
The two key points of those statements are that we must focus on peoples’ values,
and that administrative boundaries are fuzzy illusions. Scientific laws, however, fol-
low immutable rules that define the core issues.
Hanging in the balance
Extinction is an irrevocably crossed boundary. The Cape Sable seaside sparrow is
a federally listed avian species that is only found in the freshwater prairies and
marshes of the Florida Everglades. Loss of vegetative habitat and disruptions to its
nesting and breeding cycles are the most prominent reasons for the decline of the
species. The unifying cause is the water-management scenario—both cumulative and
current (Lockwood and Fenn 2000; Mayer 1998). Besides flooding nests, unnatural
alterations in the inundation duration have caused vegetation succession that has
depleted the grassland habitat of the sparrow’s preferred plant species, which is also
linked with human management of the natural wildfire cycles (Bass and Kushlan
1982; Lockwood and Logan 2000). Most professional researchers agree that the
species’ demise may be perilously close (Pimm 1998).
Summarizing the situation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) report
Balancing on the Brink (USFWS 1998) stated that only three populations of the bird
remain. The eastern (Ingraham Highway) population is at risk from fire and cata-
strophic weather events. The flood-endangered northeastern population, now at 50%
of its former size, is not recovering. The Big Cypress population, at only 10% of its
former size, is nearly lost (Curnutt et al. 1998).
These almost-sedentary birds move only about 160 m in the nests’ home range
(Morrison and Dean 2000). Their survivability is intrinsically linked with the hy-
drology and deep soils for nest-protection vegetation density (Orians et al. 1996).
The management phrase “adaptive planning and management” acknowledges the
fact that policy and practice are tenuous experiments, to be modified as additional
knowledge accumulates. Adaptive management is composed of three elements: mod-
els, support studies, and monitoring. Models frame the concepts, support studies lead
to management alternative options, and, after an alternative is chosen, information
from monitoring the effects of implementation will refine the conceptual models or
alternative options. There are very significant gaps in the basic information and pro-
ject design. These “certainty factors” have yet to be resolved: resolutions in time and
space; process assumptions; the amount, frequency, and quality of data; calibration of
the models; and acceptable ranges of error (Goodwin 2001).
“Bathtubs and barriers”
Models used in management of the Everglades hydraulics, hydrology, and animals
include the following.
• The eminent South Florida Water Management Model (SFWMM, or
WMM) is the source of other models’ topographical inputs. Used for water
allocations since the late 1970s, it is a regional simulation of the hydrologic
cycle: rainfall, evapotranspiration, infiltration, surface and groundwater flow,
canal hydraulics, and withdrawals. Its analysis cell-size of 2x2 mi simulates
regional effects very well.
• The Natural Systems Model (NSM) simulates the hydrologic response to the
pre-drainage (pre-modern human) landscape based on estimated original
vegetation. Elevation inputs are from SFWMM. NSM relies strongly on
rainfall inputs and evapotranspiration.
• The SIMSPAR carrying capacity model uses cells of 500x500 m to repre-
sent areas of similar vegetation, topography, and hydrology, as well as
in Parks and on Public Lands • The 2001 GWS Biennial Conference 53
Crossing boundaries on the ground with technologies

breeding territory density habitat type for Cape Sable seaside sparrow
populations. The life history and behavioral characteristics are based on field
observations of the species over a 15-year period, and were validated using
historical records of daily water levels (Comiskey et al, undated). Although it
uses 5- to 16-cm water heights to favor nesting, it does not allow for fire
vegetation-succession effects. The model predicts the impact of proposed
alternative hydrologic scenarios (Nott 1998). The processes of mortality,
mate choice, and dispersal are expressed as simulations.
• The Across Trophic Levels System Simulation model (ATLSS) model uses
a higher-resolution form of a “pseudotopography” that is derived from the
combination of current vegetation classifications and hydroperiod classifi-
cations (USGS-BRD and IEM 1998). It models the ponding-duration and
water-level stage. It uses the SFWMM, 2-mi-square cells, but, because of
post-processing, calculates within an area of 28.5 sq m.
• The Everglades Landscape Model (ELM) recognizes the bounding effects of
levees and canals within six individual sub-basins. That is, the amount of
water going in must equal that going out, less evaporative losses to the at-
mosphere or transpiration by vegetation. This model is the theater for the
combined operational and structural tests. It is a responsive model, using
field-monitoring sites and “trigger” events.
All of the models are useful at a regional scale. All models make assumptions in the
absence of crucial data.
As the water levels change, there are extremely subtle topographical contour
changes in sparrow habitat that form moving boundaries (also known as “drying
fronts”). Regional-scale models should not be used to form predictions on events de-
pendent on a much finer scale of responses.
Using micro-topographic laser-mapping techniques, the hydrologic limitations
delineated by the moving inundation front could be accurately tracked in the field.
Knowing the timing and duration of the flooding and “dry-downs” of the grass prai-
ries is also necessary because of attempts to recover original conditions.
Solutions for understanding
More accurate topographic data will produce more realistic model results (DeAn-
gelis et al. 1998). The scientists, modelers, and agricultural interests realized this
need and convened the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Topography Interest Group.
Two methods were tested.
The airborne laser terrain mapper (ALTM) sensor collects backscatter readings
(incidental reflections after the light beams hit something) from up to 10,000 LASER
pulses emitted per second. The source is swinging from side-to-side along a flight
path. The resultant time differential indicates the relative elevation. This system pro-
duces enormous amounts of data over a 1,200-m wide swath. A digital terrain model
(DTM) with vertical accuracy of up to +/-3 cm can be generated, but 10 cm is what is
consistently possible. The ALTM project was a cooperative effort with the USGS
Biological Resources Division, the National Park Service, the University of Florida,
and Optech, Inc. Simultaneous orthophotography capture is available.
The USGS’s airborne height finder (AHF) uses a helicopter-mounted global po-
sitioning system unit to precisely locate its position, then a servo-mounted probe is
lowered until the servo’s clutch senses a set change in the cable-lowering resistance.
The cable length is read and topographic height calculated. The results are sur-
prisingly accurate (Desmond et al. 2000). By using the tops of surveyed benchmarks,
the AHF was calibrated to have approximately a 3-cm relative vertical error. This
program is sampling the southern Everglades on 400-m grids that will produce a
regularly sampled digital elevation model (DEM).

54 Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Research and Resource Management

 Crossing boundaries on the ground with technologies

Action solutions
The Army Corps of Engineers and USFWS agreed to develop reasonable and
prudent alternatives (RPAs) that are consistent with the USFWS Final Biological
Opinion (the “Jeopardy Opinion”) on the sparrows). These RPA model parameters
would be tied to the Interim Structural and Operational Plan model for year 2000.
The RPAs are explicit operating rules for water delivery, as measured at key field
sites. As an example, a rule might read: “To ensure that the water levels at NP-205
stay below 6.0 feet for a minimum of 60 consecutive days starting March 1.” There
have been agreements and test programs for water releases into Everglades National
Park over the years, such as the Experimental Water Release Project that was started
in the 1980s (NPS 1993). The Modified Water Deliveries Project, which relied
strongly on the ELM of edge-bound sub-basins, was also a monitored-release design.
That project proceeded in steps, with differing alternatives (USACE, 1992; Van
Lent, Snow, and James 1999). Allowances for rain-driven operations, triggering
events which alter the structure-management schedules, and rules for importing or
pumping between other sub-basins are today’s management reality.
Lessons for management
The important, prevalently held realization is that communication is the most
productive manner to resolve conflicts. Long-term collaboration is the preferred
mode of negotiation, because consensus is required and the concerns are too impor-
tant to be compromised. Compromise—better suited to temporary settlements while
under unavoidable time pressures—does not fit these conditions.
Input from the biological community has been effective (Pimm 2000). Hyd-
roperiod performance measures are now accountable. It is to be hoped that the effects
of modified prescribed fire management and water releases, combined with
monitoring the nesting and breeding success, will increase the available habitat and
allow the Cape Sable seaside sparrow population to survive and revive.
The scientific community has established communications forums that involve the
management and leadership councils. The formal, interagency restoration part-
nership provides a comprehensive management framework for the professional teams
to discuss issues and strategies. The more people talk, the more we find out that no
person puts any value on an extinction.
References
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index models in application to Everglades restoration. Knoxville and Miami: Uni-
versity of Tennessee and U.S. Geological Survey Biological Resources Division.
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56 Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Research and Resource Management